


and when you hugged me, all of the problems in this world full of greed & filth disappeared

by knoxoursavior



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 10:04:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17404880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knoxoursavior/pseuds/knoxoursavior
Summary: He stands there, staring down at Sing’s brother, not really seeing him because he can’t focus on anything but the way his stomach churns, the way his throat closes up, the way his hands clench into fists at his sides. It should be easy to say the words, should be easy to set Lao onto Eiji Okumura, to stain his hands of blood even as he passes off the killing blow to someone else.But it isn’t easy. Not anymore.





	and when you hugged me, all of the problems in this world full of greed & filth disappeared

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be an angsty one sided yue/ei fic but it turned into a fix it fic where yue stops being a villain near the end of bf :~(

Yut-lung might not know how it started, but he does know when it starts to get to him, when it makes him pause, hesitate.

_Kill Eiji_. That’s all he needs to say, all he needs them to do. He wants them to get rid of the one person pulling Ash down, tying him to the ground where he doesn’t belong, but—

_Don’t you want to save your younger brother, Lao? Then kill Eiji._

_Kill Eiji. Kill him and let Ash watch as his Eiji bleeds out right in front of him_.

But as Yut-lung imagines it happening, Eiji morphs into a slender figure with long hair loose from its braid. The arms around Ash, holding him back from exacting revenge on whoever managed to kill Eiji, morph into Hua-lung’s. Ash’s pain, his suffering, his white-hot anger blooming in his chest morph into Yut-lung’s from all those years ago, from that one point in his life that he comes back to again and again and again because that was his tipping point. That was what pushed him off the edge, what he still has nightmares of on his worst nights.

The words stay stuck in his throat.

He stands there, staring down at Sing’s brother, not really seeing him because he can’t focus on anything but the way his stomach churns, the way his throat closes up, the way his hands clench into fists at his sides. It should be easy to say the words, should be easy to set Lao onto Eiji Okumura, to stain his hands of blood even as he passes off the killing blow to someone else.

But it isn’t easy. Not anymore.

He walks away, in the end.

  
  


“What were you planning on having that young boy do?” Blanca asks him.

Yut-lung bites his cheek, doesn’t let anything show in the set of his shoulders or the color of his knuckles where his hands are wrapped tight around his arms.

“Does it matter anymore?” he says. “I let him go, didn’t I?”

“And why did you?”

Yut-lung doesn’t want to answer, doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want to admit out loud that he’s lost his resolve. He doesn’t want to tell Blanca the truth—that he no longer remembers what he was thinking when he wanted to see Eiji’s blood trailing behind Ash’s unsteady footsteps.

“I pay you to protect me, Blanca, not to interrogate me,” he says eventually.

Blanca doesn’t ask again.

  
  


Yut-lung doesn’t know when his hatred turned into something else, something that clenches around his heart and makes it hard to breathe. He doesn’t know why he can’t muster anything more than an ache in his chest and pinpricks in his eyes whenever he sees Eiji and Ash together. He doesn’t know what exactly it was, when exactly the shift happened, but now there’s only loneliness and jealousy left in his chest and Yut-lung _hates it_.

It makes him feel empty, makes him feel like an idiot, makes him feel everything that he’s done until this point has been stupid, futile, _worthless_. It makes him feel like a child who’s latched onto the first thing that made him feel anything remotely close to satisfaction. It makes him feel exactly like how he’s been acting—foolish, impulsive, immature. A jealous, spiteful creature digging himself a hole to rot in.

There’s only one good thing about this, and even then, it doesn’t benefit Yut-lung so much as give him a higher ground to die on.

  
  


He doesn’t help, doesn’t go out of his way to lend Ash and Eiji a hand.

He does, however, withdraw himself from his alliance with Golzine. He leaves Ash and Eiji alone, lets their fates play out without his interference. And, when Blanca tells him he wants to terminate his contract with Yut-lung so he can go and help Ash, Yut-lung lets him go without complaint.

Blanca, though, cannot seem to leave him alone just like that.

“Come with me,” Blanca says, and Yut-lung hates him for putting the thought in his head.

Yut-lung could. He could go with Blanca, could extend a hand to Ash and tell him, _I’m on your side_ , tell him, _kill them, kill them like I killed my brothers and you’ll be free,_ tell him, _go, I’ll protect Eiji while you’re gone._

In his mind, Ash takes his hand. In his mind, Ash nods and accepts his unsaid apology. In his mind, Ash becomes his first friend.

He knows that in reality, Ash wouldn’t trust him that easily. Ash might take his apology, but Ash wouldn’t leave him alone with Eiji. A snake is still a snake even after it sheds its skin after all, and Yut-lung has proven himself time and time again to be an especially temperamental, traitorous one.

Yut-lung should say no, should stay in the hole that he’s dug himself into, should distance himself from Ash and Eiji and everything that makes his heart clench in his chest. And yet—

And yet he finds himself saying yes, finds his mouth moving before his brain can catch up to it, finds himself staring at the curve of Blanca’s lips and all the sentiments weaved into that single expression.

  
  


Yut-lung’s heartbeat has never been so quick, has never been so erratic as it is now, with Ash Lynx’s full attention on him even as Blanca angles his body to cover Yut-lung, even as Blanca babbles on, asking Ash in his roundabout way if he could help.

“Want to hire me?” Blanca says. “I just got fired. How about 50 million bucks?”

Yut-lung almost misses the way Ash’s jaw drops. He’s too busy punching Blanca’s shoulder after all.

“I didn’t fire you, you jerk. You _quit_ ,” he says. “And what are you talking about, 50 million bucks? You’re not _that_ good.”

Blanca’s smile is annoying, but also the most genuine Yut-lung has ever gotten from him. Well. Close to being the most genuine, maybe.

“Ah, well, you can’t blame me for trying,” Blanca says. He hums, puts his hand on his hip, pretends to think about his fee as if he wouldn’t help even if Ash didn’t have the money to pay him. “I suppose you can set the price, then, Ash. I’m desperate for a job, after all.”

Yut-lung’s eyes narrow.

“Aren’t you retired?”

He hears a chuckle, low and quick and new to his ears. It takes him a moment to realize that it was Ash, takes him an even longer moment to recover because this is—

This is playing out better than he expected.

“We’ll talk about it later, then,” Ash says. His gaze glides over to Yut-lung, and then, “What about you? You have a fee now too?”

Yut-lung swallows against the lump in his throat. “I’m not coming with you, so no.”

Ash’s brows rise. “You’re not coming? Then why are you here?”

Yut-lung doesn’t know how to answer that, doesn’t know why he’s here, doesn’t know what he’s expecting. Well. No, that’s a lie. He _does_ know. He just doesn’t want to say it, doesn’t want to admit it out loud.

Except Ash won’t trust him if he keeps the words inside himself. Ash won’t give him a chance if he lets himself get stuck now.

Yut-lung takes a deep breath.

“Leave Eiji to me,” he says. “You don’t want to risk him coming with you, right? Then leave him to me. I’ll stay with him, and then you can come back and make sure I haven’t hurt him.”

He doesn’t expect Ash to say yes, doesn’t expect Ash to give him a chance, to entrust Yut-lung with the most important person he has in his life. Ash just looks at him for a long, long time, and Yut-lung struggles not to waver, struggles not to let his insecurity show, struggles not to let slip to Ash that his hope is slowly withering away with every second that passes.

But then Ash nods. Just like that, he hands Eiji to Yut-lung.

“He can protect himself, you know,” Ash says, and what he really means is _he can protect himself from you_. “But fine. And I’m not paying you.”

“I’m richer than you are,” Yut-lung counters, deadpan.

Ash purses his lips.

“We’ll see about that,” he says, and it feels like a promise. Or, at least, the promise of a chance.

  
  


Yut-lung sits on the couch and watches Eiji pace back and forth again and again and _again_. He should tell Eiji to stop, to calm down. Ash can handle himself. Ash wouldn’t let himself be killed now that freedom is so close, just within his grasp. Ash wouldn’t leave Eiji behind, ever, not if he can help it.

Yut-lung doesn’t, though. He keeps quiet. Eiji doesn’t acknowledge him either, until he does.

“I should have gone with him,” Eiji says, and it feels like he’s talking to himself more than Yut-lung, but Yut-lung will take it.

He shrugs. “Maybe.”

There’s a crease between Eiji’s eyebrows. Before, Yut-lung would have been happy to see it on his face, would have been happy to see Eiji unhappy, unsure, uneasy. Today, he has to force himself not to look away.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Eiji demands.

“It means that I’ll take you there if you really want to go, but it’s easier to keep you alive when there aren’t people shooting at you,” Yut-lung says, except it doesn’t seem to help at all.

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?” Eiji says.

Yut-lung sighs. He stands up, closes the distance between him and Eiji so he can wrap his hand around Eiji’s wrist and tug him to the kitchen.

“What we aren’t going to do is think about Ash; he can take care of himself. What you _are_ going to do is to help me make something because I’m hungry and if you leave me alone here, I’m going to end up burning the whole place down.”

Eiji groans.

“You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m not,” Yut-lung says. He still hasn’t let go of Eiji. “ _Come on_. Help me.”

Eiji narrows his eyes at him, but Yut-lung has dealt with worse. He stands his ground until Eiji sighs, until Eiji relents, says, “We only have eggs and coffee, you know.”

“Then we’ll make eggs and coffee,” Yut-lung says, and he tugs at Eiji’s arm until Eiji finally moves.

The eggs taste better than anything Yut-lung’s cook has ever made him. The coffee could be better though.

  
  


Ash does come back. He comes back with blood and dirt caked on his shirt and his skin, but he’s okay and he’s _alive_ . The first thing he does is go to Eiji. The second thing he does is wrap his arms around Eiji and hug him for a long, _long_ time.

Yut-lung steps out of the room then, because even if he’s resolved to be better than he was, to try and let go of his hate, there’s still a trickle of jealousy left in his chest, still an ache that starts at the sight of Ash and Eiji clinging to each other, quiet, reverent words filling what little air there is between them.

He sees Blanca and Sing outside. Ash’s other friends are there too, but Yut-lung doesn’t like the way they’re looking at him, so he opts to go to where Blanca and Sing are instead.

He crosses his arms, leans against the wall they’re both situated against, says, “You two look like you could use a good night’s rest.”

Blanca raises an eyebrow. “Are you offering your bed?”

Yut-lung almost chokes on _air—_

“Like you’d even fit on a _bed_ ,” Sing says, eyes narrowed.

Blanca makes a noise in his throat, an aborted groan half on its way to becoming a whine. “How big do you think I _am_?”

“Bigger than what Yut-lung’s bed is used to, probably,” Sing says, and it’s a little funny, how he’s puffed his chest out, how he has to look up, up, _up_ at Blanca because the difference in their heights is so ridiculously huge.

He can’t help the laugh that bubbles in his throat and slips past his lips, can only try to cover it up with a hand against his mouth.

“You’re both idiots,” he says eventually, after his laughter has died down and he’s left with reddened cheeks and a lighter heart, “but you’re welcome to sleep in my house if you want to.”

Their smiles are tired, but not wary, not brittle, not fake. Yut-lung drinks them up. Even if this is his only reward for helping Ash, for letting Eiji live, for dropping all his hatred and his spite, letting them drain away from his body until all that’s left is the stain they’ve left behind—well.

It’s all worth it.

  
  


Yut-lung still doesn’t know how it started, but he does know where he’s ended up.

Blanca stays, and so does Sing, and they help him run New York. Ash and Eiji go to Japan, and Yut-lung’s heart doesn’t ache anymore so much as swell at the thought of them.

He isn’t sure if this is happiness, but he must be close to it at least.

 

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on [twitter](https://twitter.com/singeiji) :~)


End file.
